Voyage solo et running

A week road trip in North Island

25 October 2018

After my road trip day in Cathedral Cove, I packed my stuff, loaded my van and left on the roads Monday, October 8th afternoon! I had a week in the North Island before I took the ferry on Sunday morning.

Taranaki

The weather is a little capricious that week in the North Island I adapted my ride with the weather application by my side 😅. I would ideally go down quietly to mount Taranaki but it was raining from Wednesday 😥. So I made the full ride on Monday afternoon to stop sleeping at the botanical Garden of Pukeiti. There are no signs but I sent a mail to be sure and we can spend the night (all the parking). There is a toilet open all night and even a free hot shower!! This is the luxury 😉. Before sunset I could see the mountain without cloud!

On Tuesday morning the sky was unfortunately cloudy… So I decided not to hike. Attention to the passage the Mangorei road is closed until the end of November! I’m going to the parking of the Edmont Park waiting for a little thinning to take a picture. That’s all I could get :

Three sisters and Elephant Rock

Then I went up on the road to see this superb spot! I had seen the Elephant rock from the road the day before and it had impressed me! Be careful you can only go for a walk at low tide. And be careful when the sand is too wet it’s moving!! Unfortunately the elephant lost its trunk in an earthquake 😥.

Napier

After a stop at Taupo for the night (difficult even in SC!) I headed to Napier where the sun seemed to shine still a few days! So I crossed the North island from west to east…

I took a little walk by the beach of Waimarama, almost deserted

And the Maraetotara falls.

I spent the night near the beach. A little noisy with the road but a really sublime sunrise from my bed!

After a little walk to Napier looking for Street art I went down to Cape Palliser!

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Cap Palliser

I arrived at the end of the day. I knew the weather the following days were not great. So I climbed the walk to the lighthouse.

Then admired the colony of seals.

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And a beautiful Elephant seal!!

I then went to spend the night at the free camp parking lot by the seaside. Beautiful sunset! But quite windy…

Drive to Wellington

From Friday all the south of the North Island was rainy. I took the opportunity to do a chill break and go to a library to do my blog a little 😊. Besides, there is a great French bakery in Featherston! I had spotted where to do my laundry (Lower Hutt) before arriving on Saturday in Wellington. The ferry being scheduled on Sunday morning I went early to the parking lot to rest a bit before the South Island!